It was a time of uncertainty. World War II had ended only eight years earlier. The Korean War was still top-of-mind. The Cold War was getting frostier.

School students were still being instructed to duck under their desks and “close the window shades” in their classrooms. If that was not scary enough, personalized identification bracelets were being sold in schools in case of nuclear attack. Bomb Shelters were clearly marked throughout York County.

York was a major manufacturing hub back then with a thriving downtown business district. A prime target!

Sept. 20, 1953 appeared to be a good time to hold a Civil Defense drill in York City.

On that Sunday a mock “atomic bomb was dropped on West Market Street, just west of Continental Square” at 12:53 p.m., according to The Gazette and Daily (a forerunner of the York Daily Record). In that scenario, simulated buildings erected at Memorial Stadium represented McCrory’s, Trinity First Reformed (now UCC) Church, and the W. T. Grant store.

Two thousand people – including “250 Boy and Sea Scouts from York-Adams area became ‘casualties’” – participated in the drill, the newspaper article reported.

When the siren sounded for the test, traffic was stopped in downtown York and motorists were advised to “take cover.” Medical, fire department, Civil Defense, and decontamination team responders rushed to the “scene” at Memorial Stadium.

The “star” of the drill – and the reason for the mock disaster – sat atop the Yorktowne Hotel, the tallest building in York.

“The biggest one-engine air raid siren in this part of the country” was installed at a cost of $2,500 on the roof of the hotel four days earlier. The drill on that quiet Sunday – held in the afternoon so it would “not interfere with church services” – was a coordinated test of the new siren and York’s ability to respond to a nuclear bomb emergency.

The siren topped the Yorktowne until it was removed in 2007 and then was given to the York County History Center (YCHC).

Today the siren rests in two large pieces on the floor of the Agricultural and Industrial Museum on West Princess Street. What is missing is the “sounder horn,” which creates the piercing wail. Dennis Kunkle, director of facilities for the YCHC, hopes to have “a replacement fabricated so it could go on display.”

Articles on file in the Library and Archives of the YCHC state “the brand new, gigantic noise-maker” was constructed by Bierasch and Niedemeyer Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was called a Mobile Direkto Siren. “The whole base rotated while making the eerie sound,” said Mike Lawson, a volunteer working on the siren project at AIM. Other reports state the siren platform was able to “wobble” – dip up and down – to increase the effectiveness of the sound.

The four-cycle, gasoline powered siren is one of only four known to still exist, Lawson added. With its attached sounder horn, the mechanism would have been more than six feet high.

And it could generate quite a sound. The sound was described as “a fire siren magnified tenfold.” During the 1953 drill, reports came in that the shrill siren could be heard as far away as York Hospital, as well as Hollywood Drive (future site of the York Suburban High School) and Emigsville.

Sixty-five years later, the sound of that air raid siren still reverberates in the memories of York residents of a certain age.

For others, air raid drills are just a part of history, as is that Civil Defense siren.

Gordon Freireich is a former editor of the York Sunday News. Email:gordon@newtongroup.com.

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The Thomas Shipley house once stood at the intersection of Roosevelt and Linden Avenue and was visited by President Taft during his 1915 York stop. Misericordia Nursing & Rehabilitation Center opened its doors in 1943 in the building and tended to York's elderly there for 22 years. The stone wall and steps are still visible today.
Courtesy of Misericordia Nursing & Rehabilitation Center

York city councilman Felix Bentzel, right, and York city fire chief Harry Wills sit in a 1914 York-made Pullman chief's car. Thomas Shipley, who built the home in the background, is standing on the porch. This was the first vehicle for the York Fire Department, now York City Fire/Rescue Services. Bentzel was commissioned with modernizing the department.
Photo courtesy of Peter Brady, York Daily Record

Steps and stone pillars mark the front entrance of the former Shipley house viewed from the intersection of Roosevelt and Linden Avenues. All that remains of the former mansion are the stone walls that surround two sides of the property.
Paul Kuehnel, York Daily Record

Lou Rivera, left, and Rick Serpa are shown in the living room they call their man cave, with their dog Buster Boy Harris. The home is a former carriage house located on the property once featuring a mansion in York's Avenues area.
Paul Kuehnel, York Daily Record

Looking toward Linden Avenue from the back of the house, The Thomas Shipley house when it was Misericordia Nursing & Rehabilitation Center between the 1940's and 1960's
photo courtesy of Misericordia Nursing & Rehabilitation Center

The Shipley house once stood at the intersection of Roosevelt and Linden Avenue and was visited by President Taft during his 1915 York visit. The house fell into disrepair and was razed in the mid 1970's. The stone wall in the lower right of the photo is still visible today.
From the booklet "Northwest York, 1884-1984", York Daily Record

A circular driveway that once served the Shipley house is still visible with stone from the building. The stone wall still surrounds where the house once stood. The carriage house can be seen in the background at left and condos that share the original property at right.
Paul Kuehnel, York Daily Record

The York Gazette's front page on Dec. 4, 1915, shows William Howard Taft and the principals behind the former president's visit to York the previous day. He spent time in the West York Avenue, later Roosevelt Avenue, home of Thomas Shipley of York Manufacturing Co
York Daily Record

A foyer, and garage were added to the original structure of the carriage house. A formally external wall of the carriage house is exposed. A stained glass window brings light through to the combination half bath and laundry room.
Paul Kuehnel, York Daily Record